Hello!
So I’ve been banned. I’ve been bad because I asked Fred a question about the rules instead of coming here.
This is the offending comment which prompted Fred to ban me:
New lawsuit possible, lawyer says, after Trump renews attack on writer who won US$83.3 million award
Honestly, I wasn’t arguing moderation in any way. I simply replied to Fred’s comment with what I thought would be the simplest way possible, rather than bothering the moderation team in the Den with a question about whether or not it’s okay to target the mentally ill as an insult.
I believe that I had flagged 3 comments that a certain CM had directed at me. The first was a personal insult.
New lawsuit possible, lawyer says, after Trump renews attack on writer who won US$83.3 million award
“You’re a hypocritical back-flipping joke” is an insult, isn’t it? Perhaps it doesn’t merit removal, but, if I recall correctly, I flagged it for the moderators to decide.
At the same time, I saw this response to me from the same CM (in another thread in the same OP):
New lawsuit possible, lawyer says, after Trump renews attack on writer who won US$83.3 million award
This one targets the mentally ill as a group, which is something that I have seen moderated here in the past. I believe that it was Fossil who said that we shouldn’t generalize and stereotype the mentally ill as a group with insults, because “mentally ill” is a broad group, and many of our CMs do suffer from some form of mental illness, such as depression.
In order to ensure that the moderator would understand why I had flagged the comment, I replied to that comment with my rationale outlined there. The CM replied to that comment and reiterated the attack against the mentally ill, and then, because I had said that I would not reply to him any further, he repeated my casual good-bye, and added in “dippy” as a nickname form of my screen name used as a pejorative – this is something that has been moderated in the past for others. Basically, two violations of the site rules in the same comment.
New lawsuit possible, lawyer says, after Trump renews attack on writer who won US$83.3 million award
Fred came along and saw 3 flags. I don’t believe that he looked at those flags impartially in order to understand what I had flagged.
The first one is not a biggie, but it was an insult directed at me. I would note that there was a Den discussion about a CM using a generalized “you people” (2nd person plural) in order to attack people directly. This is very similar to what occurred in this comment. I am perfectly fine if a mod decides that it’s a minor thing, and that it shouldn’t be removed, but I don’t see why it would be considered “borderline abuse” to flag such a comment.
The fact is that I had 3 comments that I thought should be reviewed by a moderator. When the moderator showed up, his immediate thought was that I was overreacting, and I don’t feel that he paid much attention to the reasons for the flag, instead focusing on how he could moderate me for my actions in flagging those comments.
He asked me why I continued to engage with the CM, as if it were my own fault. When I opened the site, 2 of the other CM’s comments were already there, and I only engaged with him in order to leave a comment to assist the moderators with the reason why I had flagged that one comment in particular – insulting the mentally ill. I did not respond to the other CM further. I am saddened that the moderator chose to come after me, instead of reviewing the flagged comments. I have been told that I and other commenters flag a “trememdous” number of comments. I don’t really think that I do flag a tremendous amount, but perhaps in comparison to others who never flag anything, I might. But I wouldn’t call it tremendous. And I wouldn’t call it a frivolous or malicious abuse of the system.
I know that I had a run-in lately, but it was not a result of my flagging any comment. In fact, I had simply commented about Sully’s use of a pornographic image that came from a website named after an illegal action – upskirt videos. And my comment was merely about the porn website itself feeling okay to use that name when it clearly is an illegal act. This set off the mod team: “Why didn’t you take it to the Den?” I answered that I didn’t see a need to do so, and it would have likely been closed anyway.
I say that it would have likely been closed, because when I took an actual concern to the Den, it was closed as a “waste of time” by Mark. This was the “Muslims have sex with goats” generalization that apparently is okay to use, as I was advised by that same moderator later.
Getting back to this most recent event, I asked Fred simply for an answer to the question, which he had not provided, instead of opening up a Den OP, and possibly not receiving a response there – because everything I do is “a waste of time”. I was trying to save the mod team some time, but Fred decided to ban me for my trying to save us all time.
So, here we are. Please review those comments. Please reinstate me.
Please advise on these three items:
1 – If it’s okay to generalize about all mentally ill people in a stereotypically negative manner.
2 – It’s okay to change people’s screen names to form insults.
3 – It’s okay to say “You’re a hypocritical back-flipping joke” to another CM.
Thanks!
I look forward to your response. I do hope that this will not simply be “closed as a waste of time”. I tried not to come here in the first place, but it seems that I have no choice.